Forces of Geek 2018 Father’s Day Gift Guide

This Sunday is Father’s Day, an actual holiday, dedicated to selling neckties to the fathers, uncles, grandfathers, big brothers, godfathers, and paternal role models in their lives.

And while most dads (or paternal figures) are likely happy with an afternoon in their man cave or an uninterrupted bowel movement, here are some of our unique suggestions to help celebrate these special relationships by giving them presents!

There’s a pretty good chance that if your dad was born in the early Seventies, they remember the distinctive characters of Roger Hargreaves’ Mr Men/Little Miss series. This chunky enamel mug is a must have, perfect for a hot beverage or as a distinctive pencil holder for his desk. Plus, the hashtag lets you know what you really think about him.

Like The Three Stooges, slapstick tends to find a far better audience with men than women. And one of the masters of slapstick is the legendary Jerry Lewis. Revered in France (but criminally underappreciated here in the U.S.), Lewis was a consummate filmmaker, often producing, directing and directing his work). Now comes the perfect collection and excuse to sit down with dad and watch a smart man do very silly things.

The 10-DVD set includes the following:

The Stooge (1951)—Features one of Lewis’ earliest pairings with Dean Martin as a musical-comedy duo

The Delicate Delinquent (1956)—A “teenage terror” is recruited for the Police Academy

The Bellboy (1960)—Lewis plays a friendly but clumsy bellboy in this slapstick classic

Cinderfella (1960)—Lewis’ take on the classic Cinderella story

The Errand Boy (1961)—Paramount enlists a bumbling Lewis to spy on their productions in this hilarious film studio comedy

The Ladies Man (1961)—A girl-shy man finds work in a women-only hotel with uproarious results

The Nutty Professor (1963)—A socially awkward professor invents a serum that turns him into the handsome but obnoxious Buddy Love

The Disorderly Orderly (1964)—Lewis wreaks havoc in a private rest home

The Patsy (1964)—Lewis directs and stars as a novice recruited to replace a big-time comedian

The Family Jewels (1965)—Lewis directs and plays seven distinct roles in this family inheritance farce

For many of us, who were there when gaming began and you could waste an afternoon with a pocketful of quarters, Atari reigned the arcade. From Pong to Asteroids to Battlezone to Centipede to Missile Command to Avalanche, the iconic brand became synonymous with cool. This backpack maintains the cool factor and includes a padded laptop pocket with several pockets and a top flap. A perfect gift for the devoted gamer.

Four-time Emmy winner Mike Reiss—who has worked on The Simpsons continuously since episode one in 1989—shares stories, scandals, and gossip about working with America’s most iconic cartoon family ever. Reiss explains how the episodes are created, and provides an inside look at the show’s writers, animators, actors and celebrity guests. He answers a range of questions from Simpsons fans and die-hards, and reminisces about the making of perennially favorite episodes.

In his freewheeling, irreverent comic style, Reiss reflects on his lifetime inside The Simpsons—a personal highlights reel of his achievements, observations, and favorite stories. Springfield Confidential exposes why Matt Groening decided to make all of the characters yellow; dishes on what it’s like to be crammed in a room full of funny writers sixty hours a week; and tells what Reiss learned after traveling to seventy-one countries where The Simpsons is watched (ironic note: there’s no electricity in many of these places); and even reveals where Springfield is located! He features unique interviews with Judd Apatow, who also provided the foreword, and Conan O’Brien, as well as with Simpsons legends Al Jean, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, and more.

Springfield Confidential is a funny, informational, and exclusive look at one of the most beloved programs in all of television land.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures presents director Eli Roth’s reimagining of the 1974 revenge thriller Death Wish. Dr. Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis) is a surgeon who only sees the aftermath of his city’s violence as it’s rushed into his ER – until his wife (Elisabeth Shue) and college-age daughter (Camila Morrone) are viciously attacked in their suburban home. With the police overloaded with crimes, Paul, burning for revenge, hunts for his family’s assailants to deliver justice. As the anonymous slayings of criminals grabs the media’s attention, the city wonders if this deadly avenger is a guardian angel…or a grim reaper.

Caddyshack is one of the most beloved comedies of all time, a classic snobs vs. slobs story of working class kids and the white collar buffoons that make them haul their golf bags in the hot summer sun. It has sex, drugs and one very memorable candy bar, but the movie we all know and love didn’t start out that way, and everyone who made it certainly didn’t have the word “classic” in mind as the cameras were rolling.

In Caddyshack:The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story film critic for Entertainment Weekly Chris Nashawaty goes behind the scenes of the iconic film, chronicling the rise of comedy’s greatest deranged minds as they form TheNational Lampoon, turn the entertainment industry on its head, and ultimately blow up both a golf course and popular culture as we know it. Caddyshack is at once an eye-opening narrative about one of the most interesting, surreal, and dramatic film productions there’s ever been, and a rich portrait of the biggest, and most revolutionary names in Hollywood. So, it’s got that going for it…which is nice.

You gotta imagine that by the time we’re pondering taking things like wallets into space with us, humans are going to have developed past physical money. Transactions are all going to be some sort of digital cryptocurrency that we access via something like a retinal scan. Of course, there will always be holdouts, but those sorts of people probably aren’t going to be the first in line to colonize another planet.

But while we’re stuck planetside, we’ve still got money in the form of plastic and paper. And we need a convenient way to carry it around since 7-Eleven doesn’t have retinal scanners installed yet. This NASA Scout wallet has the NASA “meatball” logo on the front, and an American flag printed on the inside. It has a bill holder, plus three card slots, plus two pockets behind the card slots, plus a clear ID slot with thumb assist, perfect for your NASA badge or your official visitor’s ID.

The greatest action movie of all time, Die Hard, has arrived with an all new 4K Ultra-HD remaster which makes it the perfect first movie since you upgraded your father’s entertainment center (Right?)

Bruce Willis is John McClane, a New York City cop, flies to L.A. on Christmas Eve to visit his wife at a party in her company’s lavish high-rise. Plans change once a group of terrorists, led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), seize the building and take everyone hostage, McClane slips away and becomes the only chance anyone has. The film also stars Alexander Godunov, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, De’voreaux White, William Atherton, Hart Bochner, a giant Teddy Bear and that guy who looks like Huey Lewis. Also included within is a copy of the film on Blu-ray and a digital copy. Extras include two audio commentaries, a subtitle commentary, image gallery, low quality newscasts (as seen in the film), outtakes, trailers and tv spots.

In I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing, A. D. Jameson takes geeks and non-geeks alike on a surprising and insightful journey through the science fiction, fantasy, and superhero franchises that now dominate pop culture. Walking us through the rise of geekdom from its underground origins to the top of the box office and bestseller lists, Jameson takes in franchises like The Lord of the Rings, Guardians of the Galaxy, Harry Potter, Star Trek, and, in particular, Star Wars―as well as phenomena like fan fiction, cosplay, and YouTube parodies. Along the way, he blasts through the clichés surrounding geek culture: that its fans are mindless consumers who will embrace all things Spider-Man or Batman, regardless of quality; or that the popularity and financial success of Star Wars led to the death of ambitious filmmaking.

A lifelong geek, Jameson shines a new light on beloved classics, explaining the enormous love (and hate) they are capable of inspiring in fan and non-fan alike, while exploding misconceptions as to how and why they were made. I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing tells the story of how the geeks have inherited the Earth.

In this massive eleven disc-set, every death-defying stunt and hilarious prank all over again with this new collection, which features all seven Jackass movies and the entire TV show. Extras include audio commentaries cast interviews, featurettes, outtakes, promos and deleted scenes.

Jackass: The Movie: Johnny Knoxville and his crew of fun-loving masochists bring their routines to the big screen in this feature adaptation of the popular but controversial MTV series Jackass. A crew of young men perform a variety of strange, painful, and often humiliating stunts for the amusement of themselves and those around them, including crawling across dozens of mousetraps while wearing rodent make-up, being rolled down bowling lanes on skateboards, racing in golf carts across an ancient driving range, giving themselves self-inflicted paper cuts, making snow cones out of urine, tightrope walking over live alligators, using uninstalled sanitary plumbing in a hardware store, terrifying Japanese pedestrians while wearing panda costumes, and much, much more.

Jackass Number Two: For fans who thought the stakes couldn’t be raised any higher and the bar couldn’t be lowered any further, the original cast and crew of the stunt comedy sensation that swept the globe return for another round of jaw-dropping feats that are guaranteed to have viewers wincing through their laughter.

Jackass 2.5:Johnny Knoxville and company return in this Internet-distributed sequel featuring original footage and previously unused outtakes from Jackass 2. Produced by Paramount Studios for less than two million dollars and tied in with the launch of jackassworld.com — an online community featuring blogs, archived episodes of the MTV series, and original content — Jackass 2.5 premiered on December 19, 2007, as part of Blockbuster Video’s Movielink service and marks the first time a major motion picture studio has premiered a feature film online.

Jackass 3: This time the Jackass team takes part in another round of outrageous pranks and stunts. In addition to standing in the path of a charging bull, launching themselves into the air and crashing through various objects, the guys perform in segments such as “Sweatsuit Cocktail,” “Beehive Tetherball” and “Lamborghini Tooth Pull.”

Jackass 3.5: A compilation of stunts that didn’t make it into Jackass 3, but that made Johnny Knoxville and the rest of the gang want to release them to the world regardless.

Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa: The signature Jackass character Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville) and Billy (Jackson Nicoll) will take movie audiences along for the most insane hidden camera road trip ever captured on camera. Along the way Irving will introduce the young and impressionable Billy to people, places and situations that give new meaning to the term child-rearing. The duo will encounter male strippers, disgruntled child beauty pageant contestants (and their equally disgruntled mothers), funeral home mourners, biker bar patrons and a whole lot of unsuspecting citizens.

Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa .5: Loaded with never-before-seen content, Bad Grandpa .5 gives you a whole new perspective on the world of Irving Zisman.

Jackass Classic Television Collection: Join sadomasochistic superheroes Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, and the rest of the Jackass crew as they terrorize your TV screens and everyone that gets in their way (especially themselves) with their own sick and twisted interpretation of physical entertainment. Their brand of pranks, goofball antics, and unabashed brutal comedy are sure to bring new meaning to the phrase “Don’t Try This At Home!” To this date, Jackass ranks as one of MTV’s highest rated programs. However, controversy surrounding the show’s tastelessness and violence led to it’s inevitable cancellation. Includes both hysterical seasons.

Dr. Ian Malcolm once declared about making dinosaurs, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

Thankfully, Think Geek ignored this philosophical dilemma and the results couldn’t be better.

This exclusive statue celebrates Jurassic Park‘s 25th anniversary, which serves as a reminder that your dad is as old as a dinosaur. Perfect size for your desk, this statue is 4 1/2″ tall x 12″ long x 3″ wide and is made of 90% plastic + 10% iron (for structural support). Goats not included. That’s chaos theory.

The perfect companion to AMC’s six-part television series James Cameron’sStory of Science Fiction,this unique book explores the history and evolution of the genre with contributions from the filmmakers who have helped bring it to life

For the show, James Cameron personally interviewed six of the biggest names in science fiction filmmaking—Guillermo del Toro, George Lucas, Christopher Nolan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ridley Scott, and Steven Spielberg—to get their perspectives on the importance and impact of the genre. This book reproduces the interviews in full as the greatest minds in the genre discuss key topics including alien life, time travel, outer space, dark futures, monsters, and intelligent machines.

An in-depth interview with Cameron is also featured, plus essays by experts in the science fiction field on the main themes covered in the show. Illustrated with rare and previously unseen concept art from Cameron’s personal archives, plus imagery from iconic sci-fi movies, TV shows, and books, James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction offers a sweeping examination of a genre that continues to ask questions, push limits, and thrill audiences around the world.

The first film from writer/director (and star) John Landis, Schlock also features early work from makeup artist Rick Baker. A love stronger, and stranger, than King Kong! The long-slumbering banana monster Schlock wakes up after 20 million years and escapes from his cave, befriending a blind girl who thinks he’s a dog, and causes mass panic in the small town with a shocking bloody massacre setting the scene. Schlock tries to escape but the military is fast approaching…

Now available for the first time ever in high-definition from Turbine Media Group, this exclusive limited 2000-copy Blu-ray/DVD combo mediabook edition contains the main feature in full HD sourced from an all-new, detailed 4K frame-by-frame restoration on Region Code–Free Blu-ray for worldwide playback, and an NTSC SD DVD 4:3 full-frame version, like in the good old days of VHS. The mediabook packaging features original artwork and a bound-in, fully illustrated booklet with rare pictures and new writing on the film in German and English!

Extras include new introduction by creator John Landis, exclusive newly shot interview with John Landis, vintage audio commentary by John Landis & Monster Maker Rick Baker, Trailers from Hell clip: John Landis on Schlock, original trailers and original 1970s radio spots.

Whether producing, writing, directing, or acting, the Duplass Brothers have made their mark in the world of independent film and television on the strength of their quirky and empathetic approach to storytelling. Now, for the first time, Mark and Jay take readers on a tour of their lifelong partnership in this unique memoir told in essays that share the secrets of their success, the joys and frustrations of intimate collaboration, and the lessons they’ve learned the hard way.

From a childhood spent wielding an oversized home video camera in the suburbs of New Orleans to their shared years at the University of Texas in early-nineties Austin, and from the breakthrough short they made on a three-dollar budget to the night their feature film Baghead became the center of a Sundance bidding war, Mark and Jay tell the story of a bond that’s resilient, affectionate, mutually empowering, and only mildly dysfunctional. They are brutally honest about how their closeness sabotaged their youthful romantic relationships, about the jealousy each felt when the other stole the spotlight as an actor (Mark in The League, Jay in Transparent), and about the challenges they faced on the set of their HBO series Togetherness—namely, too much togetherness.

But Like Brothers is also a surprisingly practical road map to a rewarding creative partnership. Rather than split all their responsibilities fifty-fifty, the brothers learned to capitalize on each other’s strengths. They’re not afraid to call each other out, because they’re also not afraid to compromise. Most relationships aren’t—and frankly shouldn’t be—as intense as Mark and Jay’s, but their brand of trust, validation, and healthy disagreement has taken them far.

Part coming-of-age memoir, part underdog story, and part insider account of succeeding in Hollywood on their own terms, Like Brothers is as openhearted and lovably offbeat as Mark and Jay themselves.

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